Greenway Foundation educator Kate Ronan, right, checks Annalena Tylicki’s net for bugs and other living creatures she collected in the South Platte River during a SPREE day camp at the restored Johnson-Habitat Park June 9, 2015.

Now, says county commissioner Mike Bordogna, it’s kids. They just don’t stick around this former mining town, which is ringed by some of Colorado’s most picturesque mountains, meadows, lakes and trails.

“We need to show our kids why this is the greatest place in the world to live and give them a reason why they want to come back here and finish their educations and start businesses and invest in this community,” Bordogna said.

Great Outdoors Colorado is giving Leadville and Lake County a big boost toward connecting kids with outdoor opportunities and, perhaps, helping them to become invested in their high-altitude hometown.

Leadville is getting the largest piece — $3 million — of the $13.5 million GOCO said on Thursday will be distributed to six Colorado communities through its pioneering Inspire Initiative grant program. The grant program is focused on getting kids into the outdoors, using trails, recreation centers and education programs to foster the deep appreciation for wild-land recreation that permeates so much — but not all — of Colorado.

In towns like Lamar and Leadville, and in impoverished neighborhood communities like Denver’s Westwood and Montbello, too many kids never get a chance to know the Colorado playground that’s pitched to tourists. They don’t go for hikes or ski trips. They don’t pedal to parks. Most spend less than 10 minutes a day playing outside. Maybe they don’t feel inspired or welcome. Maybe they don’t have the money or access or knowledge or gear.

“We as a state have an opportunity to change that,” said Jackie Miller, director of GOCO’s youth initiatives. “What we’ve heard loud and clear over the last year is this is really a problem. For a state as rich in outdoor resources as Colorado, there is still a large percentage of the population that is not enjoying those resources.”

Last fall, GOCO announced six pilot communities — a blend of urban, rural, suburban and mountain communities, including northeast metro Denver, Westwood, Lafayette, Lake County, Lamar and the San Luis Valley — each had won about $100,000 to help plan trails, parks and education programs designed to remove barriers keeping kids from getting outside. The funding announced Thursday is expected to reach about 42,000 Colorado kids.

In Leadville, a coalition of 27 community groups and another 70-plus community leaders galvanized to craft a proposal intended to get more kids appreciating the great big playground in their backyards. A half-dozen “promotoras” — or liaisons — and twice that many kids hit the streets, conducting 239 interviews in apartment complexes, mobile home parks and other areas with lots of kids who weren’t enjoying the region’s mountains or even city parks. Those interviews helped shape a three-year program that will impact more than 1,500 Lake County kids and create 95 youth and community jobs in Leadville.

The researchers found Lake County’s Latinos eager to be listened to and included, said promotora Cristina Reveles. They heard about the challenge of transportation for kids in outlying areas whose parents worked until late in the evening.

“My parents definitely want to take me out, but there’s never any time, really,” said 16-year-old Angel Bujanda, an interviewer and researcher who helped with the Lake County proposal.

The interviewers exposed a small community divided by different cultures and socio-economic perceptions, a common scenario in Colorado’s resort communities, where the privileged often overshadow the workers.

The grant money will narrow those divides and “build stronger bonds,” said 17-year-old Brayhan Reveles.

“There have been so many barriers, from transportation to the language you speak, that people aren’t really connecting,” said Reveles, who also helped with the Lake County proposal. “But with this grant, we are going to break down so many barriers and we are going to become such a strong community. It’s going to leave a big impact for a long time.”

Standing around an outdoor fire ring near the new ice rink at Leadville’s revamped Huck Finn Park, more than a dozen Leadville community leaders last week celebrated the GOCO grant with embraces and cheers. About a third of the grant will go toward building a 3,400-square-foot outdoor education hub at the park, where kids can take classes on how to design playgrounds and parks around Leadville and borrow equipment from a gear library.

A majority of the grant will support bilingual outdoor education programs — like a wilderness class at Lake County High School or outdoor industry college-prep courses at the city’s Colorado Mountain College. As with every other Inspire Initiative grant recipient across Colorado, a good chunk of the grant money will go toward sparking interest in careers in outdoor education or natural resources.

The 336 paid youth jobs and 200 community positions the grants will create across Colorado anchor the pillars of the $25 million Inspire Initiative, a first-of-its-kind program designed to create more places to play, programs to make those places appealing and youth-empowering pathways for kids to become leaders.

In Leadville — and in each of the five other pilot communities — that means the kids were directly involved in the planning for how this grant money could be deployed. They sat at the table and made decisions that will become reality. It all stemmed from Lake County’s 2011 Youth Master Plan, which helped the community unite behind the GOCO proposal.

Sam Frykholm is excited for a wilderness experience class in his high school. The 14-year-old expects the class could trigger a change in how his fellow students see the 14,000-foot peaks that loom large over Leadville.

“We could have a new school culture based around the outdoors,” he said. “Especially living in a community like this with so many amazing mountains and amazing things to do outside, having a school culture built around that is going to be so incredible.”

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GOCO’s team of staffers and 10 peer reviewers next year will weigh proposals from 15 “tier two” Colorado communities who will by vying for a second round of multimillion-dollar grants to develop outdoor facilities and programs. The Colorado Lottery-funded GOCO, which has committed more than $900 million toward 4,800 projects in every Colorado county since voters created the fund in 1992, will announce the second round of Inspire Initiative grant winners around this time next year. Then GOCO, in partnership with the Kaiser Permanente Institute for Health Research, will shepherd implementation of the programs.

Here are the five other recipients of the first round of grants:

The San Luis Valley gets $1 million. The youth-led San Luis Valley Inspire coalition gets $1 million for the Antonito Outdoor Education Center, new trails along Willow Creek Corridor and support for the Saguache Backyard to Backcountry Program. The Rio Grande Headwaters Trust gets $376,500 from GOCO’s open-space program to permanently conserve the 460-acre La Garita Creek Ranch near Del Norte. Colorado Parks and Wildlife gets $25,000 from GOCO’s habitat restoration program for the Rio Grande State Wildlife Area. GOCO has invested $42 million in the San Luis Valley, conserving more than 90,000 acres and supporting projects like an ice rink in Alamosa and parks in Monte Vista and Center.

Lamar gets $1.3 million. The Inspire Lamar group will focus on connecting local kids with nature by investing in the city’s North Gateway Park and Willow Creek Park, both along the Lamar Loop Trail. The plans call for developing 21 programs and interactive opportunities along the trail that will encourage fishing, camping and biking. The group will partner with Colorado Parks and Wildlife and local Boy Scouts in a training program that will teach locals how to develop outdoor education programming. GOCO has invested $3.1 million in southeastern Colorado’s Prowers County, conserving more than 1,400 acres of land and supporting the Lamar Loop, as well as a sports complex and school playground.

Boulder County gets $2.8 million. The Nature Kids / Jovenes de la Naturaleza Lafayette hopes to reach 2,750 kids in Lafayette and develop 47 youth and community jobs in the region. The grant will focus on 1 square mile in Lafayette, linking public schools that serve some of the lowest income families in Boulder County with hike and bike trails, parks and outdoor programming geared toward the region’s Latino population. A little more than $1.2 million will build a new park at Sanchez Elementary and a trail connecting the park to nearby neighborhoods. The plan hopes to provide an outdoor space within a 10-minute walk for every kid in the area. Longmont gets a $60,000 habitat restoration grant for the North St. Vrain Creek in the 3,000-acre Button Rock Preserve. GOCO has invested $19.2 million in Boulder County, conserving more than 5,500 acres of open space, including funds for flood recovery and the restoration of Lyons’ flood-ravaged Meadow Park.

Metro Denver gets $5.4 million. Southeast Commerce City, northwest Aurora and Denver’s Westwood, North Park Hill and Montbello neighborhoods will share a grant. The Go Wild Northeast Metro group gets $2.7 million to help open access to the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, develop opportunities at Barr Lake State Park and build outdoor recreation programming through the Bluff Lake Nature Center and Environmental Learning for Kids. The My Outdoor Colorado coalition in Westwood will get $2.7 million to revamp parks and create more opportunities in Genesee Mountain Parks. Half of the grant will include programs through Denver Parks and Recreation, the National Wildlife Federation, the Boys and Girls Club of Metro Denver, the Greenway Foundation, the Kiva Center and Denver’s Early Childhood Council. GOCO has invested $44 million in Adams and Denver counties, conserving 2,800 acres of open space and developing trails along the South Platte, Sand Creek and High Line Canal.

Jason Blevins covers tourism, mountain business, skiing and outdoor adventure sports for both the business and sports sections at The Denver Post, which he joined in 1997. He skis, pedals, paddles and occasionally boogies in the hills and is just as inspired by the lively entrepreneurial spirit that permeates Colorado's high country communities as he is by the views.

A customer dining at Washington’s Oceanaire restaurant noticed an unusual line at the bottom of his receipt: “Due to the rising costs of doing business in this location, including costs associated with higher minimum wage rates, a 3% surcharge has been added to your total bill.”